Young cooks will likely be more successful serving as sous-chefs under their parents’ tutelage than using this to strike out...
Unlike Berman’s Friday Night Bites: Kick off the Weekend with Recipes and Crafts for the Whole Family (2009; not reviewed), this effort is geared toward independent child chefs.
The 13 snack and treat recipes get most of their appeal from presentation—among others, a taco-salad pirate face, a breakfast buffet shaped like a train with individual cars and a berry-and-yogurt–snowcapped mountain. To assemble these creations, young chefs are directed to use a pair of (washed) safety scissors instead of knives. But inexperienced cooks may end up with way too much food, as the servings vary widely, are easy to overlook and, in many cases, are too large for one child making a solo snack. For example, the “Cold Creepy Crawly Noodles” serves four to six, while the “Tic-Tac-Toe Open-Faced Sandwich” makes only one (but takes two to play?). “Do It Another Way” sections accompanying each recipe give readers ideas for substituting ingredients or trying new ones. For the most part, the directions are easy to follow, although one recipe may well cause problems, as readers are directed to measure out six cups of popcorn from what appears to be a bag of popped corn, but a later step pictures a measuring cup filled with kernels. Other than this glaring exception, Marts’ digital artwork both supports the text and adds elements of humor, playing up the different themes of the recipes.
Young cooks will likely be more successful serving as sous-chefs under their parents’ tutelage than using this to strike out on their own. (Cookbook. 5-10)Pub Date: June 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7624-4443-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Running Press Kids
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
A lovely encouragement to young writers to persist.
This follow-up to How To Read a Story (2005) shows a child going through the steps of creating a story, from choosing an idea through sharing with friends.
A young black child lies in a grassy field writing in a journal, working on “Step 1 / Search for an Idea— / a shiny one.” During a walk to the library, various ideas float in colorful thought bubbles, with exclamation points: “playing soccer! / dogs!” Inside the library, less-distinct ideas, expressed as shapes and pictures, with question marks, float about as the writer collects ideas to choose from. The young writer must then choose a setting, a main character, and a problem for that protagonist. Plotting, writing with detail, and revising are described in child-friendly terms and shown visually, in the form of lists and notes on faux pieces of paper. Finally, the writer sits in the same field, in a new season, sharing the story with friends. The illustrations feature the child’s writing and drawing as well as images of imagined events from the book in progress bursting off the page. The child’s main character is an adventurous mermaid who looks just like the child, complete with afro-puff pigtails, representing an affirming message about writing oneself into the world. The child’s family, depicted as black, moves in the background of the setting, which is also populated by a multiracial cast.
A lovely encouragement to young writers to persist. (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5666-8
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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